Crack open a Calendula head and what do you find? More structures to crack open! Let’s take a typical Calendula head and the Outer and Inner Seeds: Now let’s deconstruct this head, separating the Inner and Outer Seeds. And then finally crack open these structures and inside we find True Seeds: Interestingly we find discussion […]

I’ve found quite a bit of variation in the quality of seeds harvested from this last grow of Sugar Snap Peas. Smooth, round and consistent color VS wrinkles, pockmarks and discoloration. My prize seeds have an appearance of the seed in the upper left (labeled “A”). And my scale, for this harvesting, goes from Grade […]

The Alaskan Lupine is here to stay! I purchased the Lupine seeds back in July 2017 from a grower near the mountain of Denali. The plants floundered for the better part of the year and finally around June 2018 they put on vertical growth. I plan on harvesting the seeds to foster genetics that are […]

Following up on an earlier post about gathering pond water for feeding plants. Disclaimer: I wasn’t able to follow my plan of feeding the plants fresh pond water every night. Fortunately though I hope the below animated graphic shows the depletion of nutrients at a very high rate (and onset of yellowing leaves). Borage plants, […]

We now have resident bees since making the Bee Condo! I am suspecting multiple holes have wasps and a smaller bee (hopefully a Metallic Green Bee). Here’s some images of the occupied cells: And a lovely image of a Metallic Green Bee:

I’ve been thinking about how to dehydrate the Borage plants for eventual salve making. I wanted to be as environmentally conscious and use our Sun for the dehydrating. This made me reflect on a design for a Solar Dehydrator in a book called Solar Gardening by Leandre Poisson and Gretchen Vogel Poisson. There are many […]

Here’s nutrient rich water that will feed the Borage plants. I expect the plants will be greener in appearance by tomorrow. My plan is to feed again on the July 13th and July 14th, taking pictures each day at same time. I’ll put them side by side to see how the change in color of […]

The second year plants are producing! And the runners have been cloned. I follow the following method mostly. Instead I don’t bother with the stakes and tamp down the plants with more dirt. The above plants look a little weak though in my opinion. I’ve started watching CaliKim29 Garden & Home DIY and her work because of […]